Stuffed pumpkin

PREP TIME

COOK TIME

Ingredients

Amounts will vary depending on the size of your pumpkin and the number of people you are feeding. This is a general idea for half a reasonable sized butternut pumpkin for two people.

Olive oil for sautng the vegetables

1 leek

1 turnip

1 parsnip

2 carrots

A big handful of roughly chopped fresh spinach

Heaped teaspoon of seeded mustard honey

Two teaspoons of honey

Chopped parsley

Lots of freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup of black beans, cooked brown rice or lentils (optional)

Handful of grated cheese for topping

Method

Cooking method:Baking

Heat oven to 180 or 160 for a fan-forced oven.

Wash your pumpkin, take the top off and scoop out all the seeds and some of the flesh to make a decent sized cavity for your stuffing. Brush the inside of the cut pumpkin generously with honey and black pepper and place in the oven to roast.

While the pumpkin is roasting, gently sautoff the diced carrot, swede, parsnip and leek in a little olive oil to soften. This will most probably take 15 or more minutes. Add the chopped spinach, cooked beans or rice, mustard, honey and parsley and stir well on the heat for a minute. Add more black pepper to finish.

By now the pumpkin in the oven should be well on the way to be cooked. Remove from oven. Pile in the vegetable filling (its best to keep the pan tilted when you do this to prevent all the juices flooding the pumpkin), just use the vegetables, push down well into the cavity and then top with cheese, pressed down and if you wish a scatter of seeds or nuts (I use sunflower seeds).

Return to oven and cook for a further 20 minutes or more until you are happy the pumpkin is cooked (a skewer pushed down into the cut cooked edge will give you the answer) and the golden top.

Using some great winter vegetables this straightforward meal can be made to suit any size of pumpkin.